Almost 100,000 dogs are euthanised every year in Taiwan. The dogs caught on the street are kept in the kennel for twelve days waiting for adoption. If nobody rescues them over that period of time, they are put down. The ones who are seriously ill and suffering are put down immediately. Yun-Fei Tou is the author of Memento Mori, a series of portraits of these Taiwanese stray dogs taken just before being euthanised.[more inside]
posted by Johnny Wallflower
on Oct 24, 2016 -
37 comments

Taiwan's president Ma Ying-jeou and China's president Xi Jinping will meet in Singapore on Saturday---the first meeting between leaders on both sides of the Taiwan Strait since 1949, when Mao forced the Nationalist regime off mainland China and into retreat into Taiwan. The Singapore meeting set for Saturday has been planned behind the scene for a year.
Already, opposition parties in Taiwan are crying foul, calling for the impeachment of Ma and accusing him of going against mainstream public opinion to meet with Xi.
posted by wallawallasweet
on Nov 3, 2015 -
15 comments

Students take over Taiwan's Legislature amid massive protests against a trade bill with China. Student protesters stormed Taiwan's Legislative Yuan last week, overwhelming police, and have occupied it since as protests grew outside. Last night, another group of students stormed the Executive Yuan, but were removed, sometimes violently, by riot police. The Presidential Office is surrounded by barricades and police checkpoints.
The protests began after the ruling party, the Kuomintang, declared a review of a China trade pact to be concluded after months of wrangling between it and the opposition in the Legislature. The students originally wanted the review to continue, but they're now demanding that it be scrapped altogether.
posted by Poagao
on Mar 23, 2014 -
22 comments

I couldn't exaggerate to you how much my mother's face lit up, or how much I wanted, for a shameful second, for my lie to be true. I began to tell her a story, got into the groove, told it with what could be called pizzazz, or maybe just mercy. A monthlong fling with a Korean girl became a year ("I liked her; she had a cocaine problem"). Immediately she laughed with relief.

Blogger jailed over critical restaurant review. The Taichung branch of Taiwan High Court on Tuesday sentenced a blogger who wrote that a restaurant’s beef noodles were too salty to 30 days in detention and two years of probation and ordered her to pay NT$200,000 in compensation to the restaurant.
posted by lily_bart
on Jun 23, 2011 -
89 comments

Some sixty-five countries have some form of compulsory military service - the Republic of China (Taiwan) is one of them. Haitien, an American-born, college-educated person of Taiwanese decent who recently returned to Taiwan, is writing about his experience fufilling his service on his blog Bala daily 巴樂日報. [more inside]
posted by sudasana
on Jun 11, 2011 -
37 comments

Chen has a daily routine—waking up at 3am, she makes her way to the vegetable wholesaler and sets up her stall, which she tends till seven or eight in the evening. The first to arrive in the dark, damp market and the last to leave, other stall-owners have fondly nicknamed her ‘market manager.’ Chen holds the stall her father left her dearly. Yuan-Jin Vegetables is her everything. Selling at “a bundle for 30 dollars*, three bundles for 50,” Chen earns only marginal profits. Yet, her frugality has allowed her to donate about NT$10 million (nearly Rs1.5 crore) [approx. US$330,000] towards various charitable causes, including helping schools, orphanages and poor children.
posted by nickyskye
on Dec 6, 2010 -
17 comments

InTheMoodForChrisDoyle "The most Chinese white man to have ever lived...the incomparable, incredibly talented Chris Doyle... is a highly acclaimed, AFI Award-winning cinematographer, known for his use of extreme angles and vanguard color grading. He has won, amongst other accolades, the Cannes Technical Grand Prize, Golden Osella, the Golden Horse awards (four times), and Hong Kong Film Award (six times). Doyle is an affiliate of the Hong Kong Society of Cinematographers." (more)
posted by vronsky
on Aug 25, 2009 -
30 comments

You can take with you. A colleague of mine showed me this page and asked if I knew what it was all about. I suggested, doll houses. He said you're warm. After a few more guesses I gave up.
When he told was it was about, it all clicked. I live in Taiwan and know quite a bit about funeral ceremonies here. I've seen a couple of cars and planes...but never have I seen items like these or these or these.
Talk about going out in style!
All of this stuff is made out of paper and is set afire!
As for the prices....just divide by 34 to get US dollars.
posted by rmmcclay
on Mar 19, 2009 -
7 comments

The Armadillo (with audio) by Elizabeth Bishop + LanternFestival"... between
the kite sticks of the Southern Cross,
receding, dwindling, solemnly
and steadily forsaking us,
or, in the downdraft from a peak,
suddenly turning dangerous.
Last night another big one fell.
It splattered like an egg of fire
against the cliff behind the house.
The flame ran down. We saw the pair
of owls who nest there flying up
and up, their whirling black-and-white
stained bright pink underneath, until
they shrieked up out of sight.
The ancient owls' nest must have burned.
Hastily, all alone,
a glistening armadillo left the scene,
rose-flecked, head down, tail down,
and then a baby rabbit jumped out,
short-eared, to our surprise.
So soft!—a handful of intangible ash
with fixed, ignited eyes.
Too pretty, dreamlike mimicry!
O falling fire and piercing cry
and panic, and a weak mailed fist
clenched ignorant against the sky!"
posted by vronsky
on Feb 28, 2009 -
9 comments

"The Gerald Warner Taiwan Image Collection is a photographic record of a US consul's impressions of urban and rural life in Taiwan under Japanese colonial rule. Totaling 340 photographs and postcards gathered by Warner between August 26, 1937 and March 8, 1941, these images provide a snapshot of Taiwan's hybrid culture of Chinese, Taiwanese, Austronesian, and Japanese influences." [Via]
posted by Abiezer
on Jan 12, 2008 -
12 comments

Binlang Xi Shi have become a part of Taiwan culture. From roadside booths they sell betelnut, cigarettes, and drinks to passing drivers. Competition between the booths drove the girls to wear skimpier outfits to attract more customers. A crackdown saw the introduction of a 3B's policy: no buttocks, no breasts and no belly-buttons. [the 'Binlang Box' page is NSFW] [more inside]
posted by tellurian
on Jun 4, 2007 -
25 comments

60 years ago today, an incident took place in Taipei, which led to the massive slaughter of thousands of Taiwanese at the hands of Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese troops.
Many were imprisoned for torture and execution on Green Island off Taiwan's eastern coast. More on Green Island here, and an interesting-ish flickr photo set here
posted by mattoxic
on Feb 26, 2007 -
8 comments

Residents try to ban child abuse victims from their neighborhood. A bunch of Taichung residents decide that their community is too nice for a home for victims of child abuse. From the article: "a committee formed by residents of the community passed a 'resolution' in June to prohibit the teenagers from moving in under the pretext of maintaining the "high quality" of the neighborhood."
posted by Poagao
on Aug 21, 2006 -
99 comments

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